226 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to wield the civil power, and bear the highest honors in their 

 gift. Yet did Cincinnatus return gladly to his labor again, 

 when his country no longer needed his put)lic services. Eng- 

 land, when the age of chivalry intervened between the dark ages 

 and her present enlightenment, had little respect for her plough- 

 men. Scott makes his Sir "Water Raleigh say, in derision of 

 his companion, " Thy shoulders have the stoop of the ploug-h- 

 man." Be it ours to reverence and honor the stalwart, intelli- 

 gent ploughman. 



The plough is both a cause and a result of civilization. By it, 

 man turns the "howling wilderness" into a home of peace and 

 plenty ; and the almost limitless expanse of prairie into fields 

 of waving corn and luscious fruit. He can bring up, from 

 the unwrought storehouse of mother earth, hidden treasures, 

 and profitably mingle things new and old. Are not the 

 farmers in the Bay State too prone to neglect the last named 

 privilege, and go to the far West for virgin soil, when it lies in 

 rich abundance beneath our feet, and but a few inches below 

 the old and well-worn earth, that our fathers have tilled and 

 re-tilled, until each upturned particle wears to us the familiar 

 look of an oft-tried friend ? 



What Pope said, of the acquirement of knowledge, might, 

 with slight alteration, apply to the improvement of the soil ; 

 dig " deep," or reach not the hidden treasure. Skill should be 

 shown in the selection of the plough, as much of success or fail- 

 ure will depend upon such selection. Many a penny-wise hus- 

 bandman of the present day, attempts the most important labor 

 of liis farm, with an implement not much further removed from 

 the primitive log of wood with projecting limb, which satisfies 

 the wants of embodied laziness among African tribes, than it is 

 from the most approved models of Prouty & Mears, Ruggles, 

 Nourse & Mason, or Whittemore, Squiers & Co. 



How revolting, to a friend of improvement, is the sight, occa- 

 sionally displayed even now, of a field, called by courtesy, 

 ploughed land, in which the turf seems broken, here a little 

 and there a little, to the depth, perhaps, of some five or six 

 inches ; and having the appearance to the uninitiated, of having 

 been subjected to a sudden invasion from a drove of Western 

 swine, driven out in too great haste to admit of even an ordi- 

 narily thorough rooting of the ground. What wonder, if a 



